Advertisers Are Still Boycotting YouTube Over Offensive Videos (go.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Associated Press:The fallout from the YouTube boycott is likely to be felt through the rest of this year. Skittish advertisers have curtailed their spending until they are convinced Google can prevent their brands from appearing next to extremist clips promoting hate and violence... At one point, about 250 advertisers were boycotting YouTube... The list included big-spending marketers such as PepsiCo, Wal-Mart Stores, Starbucks, AT&T, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, and Volkswagen.

It's unclear how many, if any, of those have returned to YouTube since Google promised to hire more human reviewers and upgrade its technology to keep ads away from repugnant videos. Both Verizon and AT&T, two companies that are trying to expand their own digital ad networks to compete with Google, told The Associated Press that they are still boycotting YouTube. FX Networks confirmed that it isn't advertising on YouTube either. Several other boycotting marketers contacted by AP didn't respond.
Thursday CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts that responding to the boycott, Google held "thousands and thousands" of conversations with advertisers, and one analyst now estimates reduced ad spending on YouTube and Google could cost the company $300 million this year alone.

Comments

Re: Children and bathwaters

[DogDude]

But the thing is, companies have decided that it's not worth it to advertise to assholes like you. THEY DON'T WANT YOUR MONEY. As a small business owner, I also don't want money from assholes. It's got nothing about free speech or censorship, or whatever words that you're throwing around without understanding. Nobody wants to be associated with assholes like you, except for other assholes.

Re: Children and bathwaters

[MightyMartian]

IQ tests are problematic, and are at best general indicators. And seeing as socio-economic conditions can and do influence IQ scores (see the Flynn Effect), trying to use IQ averages in populations to justify claims "whites are smarter thank blacks" makes IQ tests even more problematic.

Probably the best way to up general IQ scores in a population is to assure children get proper nutrition in infancy and childhood. So the real observation here is that IQ scores are probably measuring other phenomenon other than intelligence, making claims that some ethnic or racial groups are smarter than others pretty iffy at best.

Whatever the factuality of the Bell Curve, the Flynn Effect seems to counter it. Intelligence certainly has a genetic component, but it's probable that you won't really determine just how genetics influences intelligence so long as you have large segments of any given population who lack both academic avenues and basic requirements for academic and cognitive performance like decent food.

But hey, I get it, it's the age of the alt-right, where saying "Blacks are dumber than whites" is now apparently some sort of unassailable dogma, and where a previous generation's debunked or at least heavily questioned claims are brought back and again asserted to be absolute truth.